My army arrived the next morning, and everyone in the Forbidden Palace marveled over the dragon bones. We loaded the gray powder into our wagons, gave the Emperor a number of the looted art and treasure we’d salvaged from the Warlock’s tower, and then said our farewells.
Once more my mounted party traveled ahead of the main army. We reached Gongxiong the next morning and I went straight to the harbor, while Yumo-Rezu and Rami-Xayon sought out their aunt, Tong-Tong. I sensed a large amount of death here; many people had burned to death, but others had been killed by violence. Many of the buildings had been burned to the ground, and all but a handful of ships had been sunk. Thankfully, one of my warships was still afloat and undamaged, and I found Percy and his pirates on the deck drinking rum.
“Captain Chauzec!” Percy exclaimed, jumping to his feet when he saw me, with a massive grin smeared across his face. The other pirates all gave a cheer and rushed over to greet me. They all had plenty of cuts and bruises, and many were limping. None had been killed, though.
“What the hell happened here?” I asked.
“All hell broke loose a few days ago,” Percy answered. “It happened at about the same time as we saw a massive lightning storm raging in the far distance.”
“That would have been the battle I fought against the Warlock, whose ass I kicked.”
“Good thing, Captain Chauzec. But while you were fighting that bastard, some of his friends came ‘ere and set fire to every bloody ship in the harbor. They were using some sort of fire magic, I believe; no natural fire burns that hot or spreads that fast.”
“It was Yengish gray powder, I’m pretty sure of that. I’ve got a few hundred barrels of it to load onto this ship in two days.”
“Nasty bloody stuff it, it was,” Percy said, shaking his head. “Once me and my boys saw what was happening, we got our crossbows and cutlasses out and let the landlubber firestarters have it, but there were too many of ‘em. We fought hard, and we eventually killed all of ‘em, but not before they’d torched almost every last ship in the bloody harbor. And once those fires started on a ship, there was no putting ‘em out, not with water, sand or anything else you threw on ‘em. The fires quickly spread, and as you can see, half the bloody town burned down.”
“At least you and your men managed to save this war ship, though. At least we have this vessel to take us back to Prand,” I said.
“But what about your army, Captain Chauzec?” Percy asked, his face falling. “I feel like me and my boys have let you down terribly. We did everything we could to stop ‘em, you know. Fought like sharks in a feedin’ frenzy, we did.”
“I can see that. Don’t worry Percy, you saved one ship and that’s enough. I have a plan for getting my army across the ocean. It’ll take a while, but I’m sure it’ll work.”
“How do you propose to do that, Captain Chauzec?”
A smile spread slowly across my face. “The undead, Percy, are impervious to a lot of things that would kill the living. Cold doesn’t bother them, and they can’t starve to death or die of thirst. As you’ve seen, it takes a hell of a lot of damage from conventional weapons to take a zombie or skeleton down too. Now, what’s one more thing that the living must have to sustain life, but the undead can do without?”
Percy scratched his chin and scrunched up his face.
“Whores?” he answered uncertainly. “Not that it’s a life or death need, but it’s close! When my boys have been out at sea for months and they haven’t had their hands on a pair of tits or fine female ass, they lose their bloody minds, they do!”
I had to laugh at this, but after I finished chuckling, I shook my head. “Good guess, Percy, but you’re pretty far off the mark. The answer is air. The undead don’t need to breathe.”
A knowing smile slowly spread across Percy’s face as he realized what I was getting at. “Captain Chauzec, this is almost as unbelievable an idea as your plan to kill a kraken, but just like that crazy plot, it’ll work! Aye, but it’ll take a while to march an undead army across the seabed, under the waves.”
At that moment a new idea popped into my head, and my grin broadened substantially. “Percy, did you ever ride in a sled when you were a kid?”
“On snow, like?”
“On snow, on grass, anywhere.”
“No, but I’ve heard that some of the Northern Barbarians travel great distances across the ice and snow of the wastes by sled, pulled by teams of tamed direwolves.”
“Exactly. I don’t have a team of direwolves to pull a sled, but I do have an immensely powerful undead kraken and whale. And if we can build a large enough sled to pack an army onto…”
“Arr Captain Chauzec, arr! We can salvage all the anchor chains from the sunken ships in the harbor, and whatever metal sheets are on ‘em too. We can make a series of sleds for your troops, all linked together in a long chain, that your whale and kraken can drag across the seabed. Why, with the kraken being as strong as it is, the army might only
